When Creativity isn't courteous...

The other day I was sitting in McDonald's studying. Don't ask why McDonald's: the fact is it's the place I study best and I'm not going to question that, so why should you?
   Anyway, I was studying away, reading up on Rousseau and Plato and all the exciting philosophers when I noticed that at the table in front of me there was a man with a camera taking a picture of his friend. This was all innocent but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking at me... through the lens!
   I carried on studying, though remaining wary, when I was sure the man had just taken a photo of me. Em... What do I do now? I couldn't be sure for a start, and I didn't want to say anything so I carried on my work. I looked out of the window and there! I definitely saw the camera getting raised in my direction and I heard the tell-tale shutter.
   Creepy!
   It felt like being in China again, when I was a spectacle to all the citizens who saw a tall, pale, blonde girl and thought they had every right to take her photo. They didn't. And this guy doesn't either.
   I could hear him telling his friends about photography and photos that are famous and I even caught a compliment about the light in my eyes. Doesn't make the situation any less uncomfortable for me though.

   When the man got up to leave, he came and asked about my studies and nonchalantly told me about the photo he'd taken of me as if it was socially acceptable. Which it isn't. He started telling me about photography and the different photos that express things and though he seemed nice enough, and he's a regular at the McDonald's, I still felt a bit sick.

So after discussing creativity, and what it is at university, I feel it's safe to say that creativity isn't always courteous. It doesn't always take into account other people. The man saw a photo moment that he liked so he took the opportunity to capture it. I'm sure he can go away and feel pleased about his photo, admiring the light or the focus or other camera stuff, but I'm stuck feeling hard done by because I wasn't asked and that makes all the difference.
Unless the photo is a work of art and it launches a modelling career that brings me millions. But I highly doubt that will happen.

When awkward moments start a day...

The other day I had a rather awkward moment at the train station on my way to university. I was alone on the platform because everyone had just boarded the express train. There was a man in a luminous top who didn't get on the train but instead left the platform. I was reading through my course stuff to try to get a grasp on one of the assignments and I dropped my jotter in a puddle. I looked about to see if there was anything to clean my jotter up and there was a newspaper next to me. People leave newspapers lying about all the time but since it was the Guardian I didn't want to tear into it so I removed one of the inner papers, the puzzle section, and wiped my jotter down. So there was the four seats: the Guardian in one, the dirty loose part of another seat, my jotter and me.

And then the man in the luminous top came back. It was his newspaper.

We both knew what I did but neither of us said anything. I was so embarrassed and it was so awkward, and quite funny too. He seemed pretty unimpressed and glared at me when I got on the train but in my defence, he left it! He left the platform for a good 5 minutes and I didn't know he was coming back to reclaim his newspaper. The only good news is that I didn't tear anything out of it. That would've been worse..

When Friends Step in...

So after a stressful week of feeling like university is a massive weight on my shoulder that is going to crush me (always the optimist) I managed to adhere to my favourite saying and "Man up."

This has greatly been helped by the fact that I have such good friends and family who support me when things go wrong and who don't judge me for my mistakes but build me up so I'm strong enough to not make them again.
I'm now feeling much calmer about things and also excited about my school placement which will be after that abyss that is my exams. Thank goodness I've still got friends and family who can keep me sane in the upcoming weeks.

And on an unrelated note, I'm getting promoted at work! This always helps brighten up a bad week.

When things go wrong...

So finding out this week that I have to resit my nursery placement induced a number of responses in me:
I am a bad teacher
I am going to fail the whole course
But I don't want to be a nursery teacher
Why? My school report was amazing and I received chocolate from a parent
I feel sick
Do I have to do another placement?

And so on so forth

But the point I'm reaching now is more positive: I made a mistake; I'll learn from my mistake; I get to fix my mistake.

It just shows that in life, things will always knock you down and go completely differently to how you planned but you need to find the bright side and pick yourself up and just get on with it. I've had my 24 hours of feeling pants and now I'll just man up and roll with the punches.
Such is the ways of the trainee teacher.